The Real Unemployment Rate - January 13, 2011
Worse, the aforementioned unemployment rate of 9.4% is just a fraction--perhaps half--of the overall jobless rate. That is because this so-called official rate includes only those considered to be technically unemployed.
classified as long-term unemployed , 15 million jobless Americans fall into this category
jobless for more than 99 weeks, now total some 1.5 million,
Such a large group of long-term unemployed have a bad psychological effect on the nation's economy, by causing all sorts of long-term adjustment issues and family stress.
This is a real problem and one that has, as noted, both tangible economic effects and more subtle, but no less real, emotional and psychological impacts. The chronic jobless problem is real, and will be with us until long into the current expansion. In fact, should this serious problem last into the next recession, it will only make that presumptive downturn that much more severe.